


Illumination

by playwithdinos



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Homesickness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-13 22:11:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4539288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/playwithdinos/pseuds/playwithdinos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“I cannot believe,” Dorian is saying as he lies on the Inquisitor’s bed, “you dragged me up here for a book of old folk tales.”</i>
</p>
<p>When the Hero of Fereldan gives Erivinn Lavellan a copy of the Dalish tales Velanna has been compiling, the first person she shares it with is Dorian.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Illumination

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MissSunnySweden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissSunnySweden/gifts).



> For [Dragon Age Fic Swap Round 2](http://daficswap.tumblr.com/). [MissSunnySweden](http://misssunnysweden.tumblr.com/) requested her [Erivinn Lavellan](http://misssunnysweden.tumblr.com/tagged/Erivinn-Lavellan) and Dorian in the following scenario:
> 
> _The HOF gifts the Inquisition with a copy of the book of Dalish tales Velanna began to write in Awakening. The Inquisitor immediately runs to show the book to Dorian, since they have become library buddies. I would love some bittersweet homesickness on both parts, but only cheerful fluff is great too._

“I cannot  _believe_ ,” Dorian is saying as he lies on the Inquisitor’s bed, “you dragged me up here for a book of old folk tales.”

               “It’s so  _new_ ,” Erivinn says, awe in her voice. Dorian glances over at her, sitting cross-legged on the floor with her back to the fire. Her hair spills in gentle red waves over her shoulders as she runs thin, calloused fingers over the cover of the book in her lap. Dorian can’t read the title from where he’s lying, and it’s in elven nonetheless, but Erivinn looks at it with blue eyes wide and full of wonder.

               Her smile is bright and nauseatingly contagious. Dorian looks away to cover his, throwing an arm over his eyes in mock despair. “And here I thought you’d finally got a hand on  _another_  copy of Genitivi’s work. Perhaps the fourth edition! We only have three of those.”

               “I thought we had four,” she says, distantly.

               “I used one to clean up after Baron Plucky got loose,” he quips. “That’s all they’re good for anyway.”

               He hears the soft  _creak_  of leather binding being bent too quickly, the rustle of a page, and he jerks upright on the bed. “Wait!” he says, and he practically leaps the few steps’ worth of space between them. “Not like that! You’ll wreck the binding!”

               Her grin is sheepish, her excitement only abated some. “Sorry,” she says, twining her fingers together in her lap.

               Dorian sits next to her—holding the book out of her grasp when she reaches for it and giving her a pointed look until she drops her fingers to the elegant rug underneath her, hands splayed on the spiralling patterns and bright colours. Only when he is certain she won’t grab for it again does he pull the book to his lap and open it—gently, methodically, testing the limits of the new binding, the leather and the hide that keeps the pages together.

               Only when he is satisfied the binding will not break does he give it back to her. She grabs for it eagerly, and he feels her nails scratch along his skin at the force with which she takes it from him. She doesn’t notice and he doesn’t scold her, smiling to himself and shaking his head while she opens the book to the first page, beaming.

               “Oh, there’s  _illumination_ ,” she exclaims, and her fingers trace the spiralling patterns that decorate the margins. “This one— _Dorian look_ , this one right here is Sylaise’s fire, and here there’s Ghillanain’s horns—”

               His eyes follow the patterns her fingers fly across dutifully, and as she describes him he sees their shapes, can only guess at their meanings. These are not seen in any book on the Dalish, not in any of Genitivi’s writing or in any fantastical Orlesian fairy tale published as fact. Her delight is plain on her face, and she flips through to the book’s  _Table of Contents_  with an eagerness she doesn’t try to hide.

               He has a distant, faint memory of a book that someone else held in her lap—not his mother, he knows, because he remembers pointed ears, a gilded slave’s collar, thin hands and a warm, soft voice that called him  _little master_  with fondness.

               An innocent little boy’s question;  _Why does Alatius marry the girl in the end? Octavius was at his side the whole time._

               He remembers pain in her expression, although his memory has not kept the details of it. He cannot give comparison to the colour of her skin or the shape of her lips, but he knows that she kissed his forehead, closed the book and changed the story—only after she made him promise to never repeat it to another soul.

               His eyes drift down the list of stories—in Trade now, as her fingers drift away from the stories about the gods and down to hunters, to Keepers, to heroes of the Dales.

               “And there’s even the tale of Halaan and Laleal! That’s one of my favourites!”

               “Oh?” he says, blinking his memories and his emotions away rapidly. “What’s it about?”

               “Halaan was a dancer, and he danced for the court of a Dalish noble, and Laleal was a bodyguard. The noble suspected a spy among his staff, and Laleal was the man tasked with finding out who. And of course they fall in love and—”

               Something must change in his expression, because she gives him a curious look. “Dorian?”

               He smiles. “May I read it?” he asks, not quite trusting his voice.

               She passes him the book without reservation, and she scoots closer to him to lean over his shoulder as he turns the pages. His hands are not as eager as hers, but the reverence with which he touches the pages is not so different. Even if his reasons are.

               “Only if you read it out loud,” she says, her voice soft, resting her head on his shoulder.


End file.
